Delusions of Grandeur
by AniJen21
Summary: Visser Three had an uncanny ability to sense when the Animorphs were spying on him, but at what cost did he develop this skill? A one-shot about Visser Three's paranoia, and his interaction with Alloran.


(Get these fools out of my sight.)

Visser Three watched as two of his Hork-Bajir guards dragged away the mutilated corpses of three humans who had failed their mission and dragged vermin into the Yeerk Pool. They worked quickly and clumsily. Reptilian as they were, they were pale with fear. He was not a forgiving leader.

The stench of blood was hard to scrub away, and it never mattered, since he was too impatient to ask the insolent to leave his office before murdering them. The smell of death and putrefaction piled up and up, higher and higher until it saturated the air, insulated his nostrils. It was a necessary smell. They were necessary deaths. But no matter how much time he spent in there, it was not a smell he could get used to.

(You are hungry,) a voice said in his head. It was Alloran, the pathetic coward who was his host.

(You will maintain your silence, scum.)

(You forget the time, Visser.) Alloran always called him Visser, a mockery of respect that was more insulting than any other epithet could be.

Despite himself, Visser Three turned a stalk eye up to the counter hung in his office. Alloran was right. It had been almost three days since his last feeding. He would be starved in three hours.

(Have you come to recognize the glory of the Empire? The true honor in hosting a Yeerk?) Visser Three ridiculed as he headed outside his office to gather sufficient shock troops to handle his host while he fed.

(You would have felt it eventually.)

(Perhaps too late.)

(You would never push close enough to the deadline to justify that hope. You are far too cowardly.)

(At least I did not ask a child to kill me.)

(If only I had done it myself.)

They made their way down the stairs to the pool, flanked by four Hork-Bajir all armed with Dracon Beams.

He had been a better leader at one point. Before the bandits had begun attacking, he only armed the pier guards. Even the cage guards were unarmed. Such violence and instability were unnecessary. The cages were sufficient to handle the blubbering, screaming, pathetic hosts. Single, resistant hosts only caused enough trouble to break the monotony. Keep things interesting.

But then the bandits attacked.

He was happy at first. Thrilled at the thought of a challenge, at the prospect of worthy opponents. He'd used a morph he'd procured from a year-long tour of the galaxy, one that had impressed and awed him. Andalites, for all their flaws, had a quirky sense of technology. Of all the possible weapons to create, the Escafil Device was unlikely and wonderful.

But then the bandits continued to attack.

A moth brushed by his ear.

He stopped, dead in his tracks, and the Hork-Bajir all looked around, too stupid to immediately guess what had happened. Then one figured it out. He scanned the cavern with his weapon, pointing it at the ceiling, the ground, the Pool.

(Not the pool, you idiot! Don't shoot the ceiling!)

"Where are they?"

He didn't know. And that would have been the third time in a week that he locked down the Pool to find the bandits that weren't there.

"Should we initiate a search?" One of the other guards asked.

He swept Alloran's eyes carefully around the cavern. It was becoming large now, a veritable community, impossible to see everything at once. Were any of the human hosts acting strange? Any of the Hork-Bajir? Were there any that were unarmed or suspicious, any that stood out in any particular way?

A human girl held a doll tightly against her chest across the pool. She was staring right at him.

(You think they are so devious to tempt you into murdering younglings?) Alloran laughed.

(I would not pause.)

(You _are_ pausing, Visser.)

(Initiate no search,) the Visser sighed. (It was just a moth.)

(But what if it wasn't?) Alloran asked. (The biofilters should have picked up the presence of a moth. Perhaps they disabled them. Perhaps they're just waiting for you to head down to the pool, waiting for your greatest vulnerability to emerge so they can destroy your precious little underground utopia.)

(I have Taxxons constantly monitoring biofilter activity. They would come to me if anything irregular entered the cavern. Moths, shrews, insects, vermin all infiltrate the cavern. We cannot pause our operation for every curious piece of organic Earth scum that finds its way inside.)

(Who are you trying to convince, Visser?)

He had no response for that.

He wanted to wait. He had three hours left. They only had two in morph. They'd have to find some place to return to their true forms, reveal themselves for a moment.

(Yes, they'd have to demorph.) Alloran surmised. (But you've given them plenty of hiding places, in your infinite wisdom. Where would _you_ do it, Visser? If you had to hide down here, it wouldn't be difficult.)

He scanned the cavern again. Storage domes. Piled boxes that hid what was beyond them. Bathrooms for humans and Hork-Bajir. They'd even used the pool itself.

"Sir?" A Hork-Bajir said meekly. He gazed at him. They were standing in the middle of a stairway.

(Stare at me for a moment longer and you'll lose an eye,) he snapped in a standard overreaction. The Hork-Bajir quickly averted his gaze, clutching his Dracon Beam close to his chest. Alloran chuckled in his head. He ignored him, heading again down the staircase.

(I do pity all the organisms we've killed these last few months,) Alloran sighed. (Millions of murdered creatures, both Earthian and Yeerk, and yet, six Andalite Bandits remain.)

(It is touching, how you worship them. They are almost gods to you, gods who won't ever answer your pointless, pathetic prayers.)

(But Visser, they are. Death would end my suffering, yes, but so would your descent into madness.)

They'd reached the floor of the pool. Hundreds of hosts all glanced up from their conversations or tasks with fear. What they didn't know was that he was just as afraid of all of them. Of what they could potentially be.

(Imagine if they got their hands on a Yeerk to morph,) Alloran mused in speculation. (Imagine if they didn't even set off the biofilters when they entered.)

(I can handle them,) Visser Three said as he clicked his hooves toward the pool.

(Then why are you so afraid?)

Visser Three had had enough. As he walked, he delved into Alloran's memories, remembering some of the more potent ones. The humiliation at Alloran's court martial for his actions in the battle for Hork-Bajir. A pretty girl he'd known before his wife, who'd rejected him long before he'd even dreamed of becoming a warrior. A moment of affection with his beautiful wife, juxtaposed jarringly with her sudden death. His thankless, ashamed children. The moment his son officially disowned his father. The chuckling stopped.

(You forget who is in power, Andalite scum,) he muttered as he turned down the de-infestation pier. It had been cleared for his use. Only two Hork-Bajir waited at the end.

One of them smiled when he saw him.

For one horrifying moment, he was sure they were bandits. Bandits who would grab him like they were supposed to, and once he was half disengaged from Alloran's mind, slit his throat, bisect him as two little dead halves of his gastropodian form dropped into the pool, never to be recovered. He felt fear in him as surely as he felt hunger or the need to expel his bowels. They were growing cleverer, more educated, and more audacious. Their attacks were becoming more violent, less restrained. This would be nothing difficult for them. This was something they were capable of.

So Alloran was right. He was afraid. And Alloran saw what Visser Three saw.

(A pitiable day when you can no longer trust your underlings,) Alloran sighed. (And I do pity you, Visser.)

(Sweep the pool!) Visser Three finally snapped, rearing up on his hind legs like a wild mustang, whipping his tail up in the air in a desperate display of power that was not his. (I WANT THE BANDITS FOUND!)

He left the pier and waited until the ache in his tiny Yeerk body became a throbbing in Alloran's head. He waited until fifteen more minutes without Kandrona rays would kill him. He waited until he couldn't wait anymore, until the first notes of the fugue played softly in his ear. Alloran could hear. Alloran had been hearing little bits of Visser Three's past now for weeks.

The humiliation of his past, the reciprocity of information that would have been fair, was the only thing that got him in the pool anymore. The only thing worse than the bandits attacking while he fed was Alloran seeing the shame that comprised his life.

So he locked the doors of the Pool and let Hork-Bajir and Taxxons scan the cavern while he swam in the Pool and absorbed his life force. It was strange. Before he'd infested his first host, he felt trapped by the pool. He wanted nothing more than the chance to inhabit a body, to see through eyes and hear through ears. He wanted the chance to be free.

Now he felt freer blind, deaf, and dumb in the Pool. Neither Alloran nor the bandits could humiliate him here. Here, he was just another Yeerk, desperate, yearning, hungry, and anonymous.

When he reinfested his host, Alloran was laughing again. There had been no sign of the bandits. He broke the lock-down and watched as human hosts, mumbling and annoyed that they were late, once again, for mundane but important human commitments, marched up the stairs. He watched as Hork-Bajir and Taxxons eyed him suspiciously, wondering if their leader was losing his mind.

He was. But it didn't matter. At some point, when he locked down the pool, the bandits would be inside. They'd morph to their battle forms and would attack, and they might even win, but it wouldn't matter, because he would be vindicated. He would be right.

(Maybe they'll never come back,) Alloran laughed. (Maybe they've given up.)

(Shut up, you old fool.)


End file.
